﻿3S2 Drift Ice and Currents of the North Atlantic. 



years. The navigators to Newfoundland and New England 

 place the junction of these currents in about latitude 41°, lon- 

 gitude 49°, which shows how erroneous their ideas are on this 



subject." 



Rennell likewise states that " there is also a smaller [?] current 

 that passes down the coast of Labrador, and eastern side of New- 

 foundland, and carries ice in sight of the coast." He also says, 

 that " it appears both from his own and other people's observa- 

 tion, that two distinct streams of ice exist ; one on the east of 

 the Bank, the other ranging along the coasts of Labrador and 

 Newfoundland ; and then obliquely across the Bank in a S. by 

 E. direction ; whilst that from Greenland, &c, runs between S. 

 by W. and S. S. W. This last current appears to fall into the 

 Gulf Stream about the latitude of 43° or 44° ; and between the 

 meridians of 45° and 50° W. The ice is, of course, carried into 

 the Gulf Stream, where, from the warmth of its temperature, it 

 must rapidly dissolve."* Rennell also states that many ice islands 

 are found to the westward of the above, " in the line of the route 

 from Halifax," and that they are often seen in the Strait of Belle 

 Isle." We quote also the followin^ 



" An experienced commander, long in the Newfoundland trade, 

 has said that the branch current which appears to come from 

 Hudson's Bay, always sets to the south-westward (perhaps S. S. 

 W.,) off the eastern coast of Newfoundland: sometimes at the 

 rate of two miles an hour; its strength, however, varying with 

 the direction and force of the wind. Passing down the eastern 

 coast of Newfoundland, it turns about Cape Race, and sets thence 

 along the south side of the island, until it meets with the current 

 from the St. Lawrence, [through the Strait of Belle Isle,] a little 

 to the westward of St. Pierre and Miquelon Islands. 



* I have not sufficient knowledge of that portion of the Greenland current 

 which lies north of the Banks, to enable me to determine if its course from the 

 coast of Greenland be directly towards the Flemish Cap and the eastern side of 

 the Grand Bank, or whether it may not fall in with the Labrador current in lon- 

 gitude 48° to 51° off the Strait of Belle Isle, or the southern coast of Labrador, run- 

 ning from thence southeasterly parallel to the coast of Newfoundland and outside 

 of the Labrador current, carrying with it the belt or stream of ice which it brings 

 from the Greenland seas. It is hoped that this point may be satisfactorily deter- 

 mined, and in the mean while I have ventured to indicate on the ice-chart, hypo- 

 thetically, the more direct route to the eastern ice region, as being that of the Green- 

 land current. W. C. K. 





